Week of 4/15: I will start the unit after we return from our spring vacation break. Keep in mind that we want the eggs to hatch on a day when the children are in school, not on a Sunday. For that reason, I never start the eggs on a Monday when they need 27 or 28 days to hatch our Pekin duck variety.
Visiting the classroom on the weekend before the hatch, allows me to prepare the incubator with paper towels to catch the mess and a brooder box of some sort with a lamp and plenty of newspaper as well as food and water containers. It is also very cool to hear the peeping from the eggs and to watch the first holes appear. "Are You My Mother?"
That is also the time I set up the webcam in the incubator. It's a good idea to label the eggs with names, or letters, or numbers so the viewers can root for their favorites.
Day 4 April 26: We marked the eggs on Tuesday, Day 1, and placed them into the incubator. (We had candled them the day before to see the lack of any real presence.) We have kept a fair amount of water in the troughs and turn the eggs 3 times a day. The children turn them twice and I turne them the last time before I leave school.
On Day 7 April 28, I will candle them again. The children have seen some images of the developing embryos and are eager to see that ours are changing as well. We also have some very simply made books on the changes inside the egg. The children write a brief sentence and draw a picture about what changes they see each week. Here is the incubator with some of the 24 duck eggs. An egg turner would be nice but the kids really like the responsibility. I'm not so fond of the weekend detail. ;P
On Day 14 May 6, we candled the eggs and found that some had made even more change and were almost completely opaque outside of the air sac. Later in the week, I threw out 3 eggs that were starting to smell bad and had discolored quite a bit. By the very end of the week, I separated several more that had not made their way to being fully opaque. Those are questionable. I also set up a camera inside the incubator and did a few test runs on UStream for later streaming.
May 12th: I am participating in a community on Google+ called Mozilla Webmakers. Today, I created this project about last years hatching of one of the eggs. This shows a chick hatching. I have hatched duck eggs for 12 of my hatching years.
On Day 21, May 13,The eggs were very dark with distinct air sacs on the end.
On Day 27, May 19th, We saw our first "pip" or chip in an egg. Several eggs were peeping as well.
On Day 28, May 20th, We saw almost all of the eggs develop a "pip" and many were peeping. It wasn't until 8 PM EST that the first duckling hatched. Since we are streaming on UStream, the families can watch at home as well.
On Day 29, May 21st, We have 5 ducklings in the incubator this morning that hatched over night. It is almost time to start putting them into the brooder box. They just need to fluff up a bit more so they can stay warm. By the end of the day, most of the ducklings had hatched. We had a chance to hold them and pass them around a couple of times. They rested in the warm brooder and huddled together in the corner. We have one rather black duckling and another partially bald duckling. Some eggs are left in the incubator.
On Day 30, May 22nd, we saw many more ducks in the incubator and we watched a few more hatch . Everyone held the ducklings again and we mentioned how big they had grown overnight. In the evening, families came in for a fiesta and duckling party. It couldn't have worked out better! The children and parents spent some quality time together and the class felt important as they taught others how to treat the ducklings as tenderly as possible. The highlight for me was the timing of the last hatch. When we knew that the viable egg had a more active duckling working on the shell, I knew we were in for a treat. A few minutes earlier, I had helped with the "zipper" moving out from the "pip" by gently pressing in a line on the fragile shell. It is fragile and shatters easily at the end of the incubation. I removed the egg from the incubator and we all gathered on the carpet in a circle with the little ones in front and the bigger folks in the back. They watched in amazement. Within 5 minutes, the duckling hatched - to the delight of everyone! I only helped it along by gently rotating the egg side to side. That was enough to coax her out. I believe a couple of parents got a video or still images of it. We now have a grand total of 19 ducklings. So we started with 24 eggs, saw that a couple did not develop the first week and were starting to discolor and stink. In all, 4 were removed early and one never hatched even though it had made it to the end with a small "pip" in the egg.
On Friday, May 31st, we said goodbye to all of the ducklings. Six went home with students and the rest went off to a farm. This was the most successful hatching experience in all my years. The children learned tons of things and I learned more about how to teach them. I highly recommend this activity. You will be surprised by how easy it is to find homes for the ducklings. Some years I have brought the last few home for the weekend but a listing on Craig's List moved them on in just a few hours.
Observations for your class from EA Kindergarten Students:
Some of the eggs are a little lighter than the others
They have many markings on then. None of them look like the eggs in the supermarket.
The duck eggs look bigger than our chicken eggs.
Just as chicken eggs come in different sizes, so do duck eggs. Ours are about the size of extra large supermarket eggs and a couple of them are smaller than that.
Questions for your class from EA Kindergarten Students:
Which egg do you think will hatch first?
We haven't marked them with numbers or letters yet. When we do, everyone can take a guess.
We finally marked some of the eggs. Most of the eggs are out of the viewing area of the camera so only the most likely candidates were marked with letter A - H.
Which egg will open next?
How many more days until your eggs will hatch?
We expect them to hatch on May 20-21st.
What does the temperature have to be in your incubator?
Ours is set to 100 degrees but it never reaches that. It is usually about 99.7 degrees F
Week of 4/15: I will start the unit after we return from our spring vacation break. Keep in mind that we want the eggs to hatch on a day when the children are in school, not on a Sunday. For that reason, I never start the eggs on a Monday when they need 27 or 28 days to hatch our Pekin duck variety.
Visiting the classroom on the weekend before the hatch, allows me to prepare the incubator with paper towels to catch the mess and a brooder box of some sort with a lamp and plenty of newspaper as well as food and water containers. It is also very cool to hear the peeping from the eggs and to watch the first holes appear. "Are You My Mother?"
That is also the time I set up the webcam in the incubator. It's a good idea to label the eggs with names, or letters, or numbers so the viewers can root for their favorites.
Day 4 April 26: We marked the eggs on Tuesday, Day 1, and placed them into the incubator. (We had candled them the day before to see the lack of any real presence.) We have kept a fair amount of water in the troughs and turn the eggs 3 times a day. The children turn them twice and I turne them the last time before I leave school.
On Day 7 April 28, I will candle them again. The children have seen some images of the developing embryos and are eager to see that ours are changing as well. We also have some very simply made books on the changes inside the egg. The children write a brief sentence and draw a picture about what changes they see each week. Here is the incubator with some of the 24 duck eggs. An egg turner would be nice but the kids really like the responsibility. I'm not so fond of the weekend detail. ;P
On Day 14 May 6, we candled the eggs and found that some had made even more change and were almost completely opaque outside of the air sac. Later in the week, I threw out 3 eggs that were starting to smell bad and had discolored quite a bit. By the very end of the week, I separated several more that had not made their way to being fully opaque. Those are questionable. I also set up a camera inside the incubator and did a few test runs on UStream for later streaming.
May 12th: I am participating in a community on Google+ called Mozilla Webmakers. Today, I created this project about last years hatching of one of the eggs. This shows a chick hatching. I have hatched duck eggs for 12 of my hatching years.
On Day 21, May 13,The eggs were very dark with distinct air sacs on the end.
On Day 27, May 19th, We saw our first "pip" or chip in an egg. Several eggs were peeping as well.
On Day 28, May 20th, We saw almost all of the eggs develop a "pip" and many were peeping. It wasn't until 8 PM EST that the first duckling hatched. Since we are streaming on UStream, the families can watch at home as well.
On Day 29, May 21st, We have 5 ducklings in the incubator this morning that hatched over night. It is almost time to start putting them into the brooder box. They just need to fluff up a bit more so they can stay warm.
By the end of the day, most of the ducklings had hatched. We had a chance to hold them and pass them around a couple of times. They rested in the warm brooder and huddled together in the corner. We have one rather black duckling and another partially bald duckling. Some eggs are left in the incubator.
On Day 30, May 22nd, we saw many more ducks in the incubator and we watched a few more hatch . Everyone held the ducklings again and we mentioned how big they had grown overnight.
In the evening, families came in for a fiesta and duckling party. It couldn't have worked out better! The children and parents spent some quality time together and the class felt important as they taught others how to treat the ducklings as tenderly as possible. The highlight for me was the timing of the last hatch. When we knew that the viable egg had a more active duckling working on the shell, I knew we were in for a treat. A few minutes earlier, I had helped with the "zipper" moving out from the "pip" by gently pressing in a line on the fragile shell. It is fragile and shatters easily at the end of the incubation. I removed the egg from the incubator and we all gathered on the carpet in a circle with the little ones in front and the bigger folks in the back. They watched in amazement. Within 5 minutes, the duckling hatched - to the delight of everyone! I only helped it along by gently rotating the egg side to side. That was enough to coax her out. I believe a couple of parents got a video or still images of it. We now have a grand total of 19 ducklings.
So we started with 24 eggs, saw that a couple did not develop the first week and were starting to discolor and stink. In all, 4 were removed early and one never hatched even though it had made it to the end with a small "pip" in the egg.
On Friday, May 31st, we said goodbye to all of the ducklings. Six went home with students and the rest went off to a farm. This was the most successful hatching experience in all my years. The children learned tons of things and I learned more about how to teach them. I highly recommend this activity. You will be surprised by how easy it is to find homes for the ducklings. Some years I have brought the last few home for the weekend but a listing on Craig's List moved them on in just a few hours.
Observations for your class from EA Kindergarten Students:
Questions for your class from EA Kindergarten Students: